‘I can well imagine it,’ retorted Jacqueline, ‘but what concerns me most is when we are going to get control of my territories.’
‘All in good time our lands will be ours. Leave it to me.’
He looked at her slyly. He did not greatly care for her. Stripped of those delectable lands she would have no appeal for him at all. Her nature was not what he would call warm – quite the reverse. She indulged in what he called bed frolics with something less than enthusiasm. It was clear to him that if he had married her for her lands she had married him that he might get them for her.
Never mind. The project was a pleasing one and it still intrigued him.
He was constantly sending messages to Europe. He was trying to get the Pope, Martin V, to agree that Jacqueline’s marriage to Brabant was not valid – Benedict did not carry enough weight – for although he was not entirely pleased with his marriage it was very important that it was recognised to exist.
There were disquieting messages from his brother John. It was a foolish thing he had done, insisted John. If he had been told that once he had been told twenty times. Burgundy was incensed, John added. Always Burgundy! John seemed to be obsessed by Burgundy. And he had married the mighty Duke’s sister! Poor solemn old John forced into marriage because of brother Humphrey’s feckless conduct!
‘As a matter of fact,’ he told Jacqueline, ‘I am working very hard on our project. Do you know that e’er long I shall have amassed an army of five thousand? The time will soon be here when we are ready to cross the water, land at Calais and then march through to Hainault.’
‘And you think Burgundy will allow that?’
‘Burgundy will not be able to stop my gallant five thousand.’
‘I trust you are right.’
She looked at him with narrowed eyes. How far did she trust him? She was no fool and she knew that any woman would have to be a fool to trust Gloucester far.
‘So my love,’ he went on, ‘it is now for you to make your preparations. What say you to that? You will want to select your household, for I will not have you travel in any inferior style than that of a queen.’
‘I have no intention of doing otherwise,’ she told him.
He nodded pleasantly.
‘Then, sweet wife, speed on your plans. Before October is out we should be on our way. We do not want to wait for the winter, do we?’
‘As soon as that?’ she said.
‘Aye,’ he answered, ‘as soon … or sooner. If you do not believe me, go and study the accounts my treasurer is compiling. He will be pleased to discuss them with you, for he is mighty pleased with his efforts.’
‘I will,’ she said.
He bowed as she went out and then made his way to the apartment which they shared together.
A woman was hanging up one of Jacqueline’s cloaks in a cupboard. He had seen her before and noticed her. He had in fact come here in search of her.
‘Why ’tis Lady Eleanor, I do declare,’ he said.
She turned round. She had large dark brown eyes and thick dark hair; her cheeks were highly coloured and Humphrey thought of her as luscious. Her figure was voluptuous in the extreme, small waisted, large bosomed and ample hipped. The belt she wore at her waist accentuated this.
‘Ah,’ she said saucily, ‘I too will make a declaration. It is Duke Humphrey.’
‘And you are pleased to see him, mayhap?’ he murmured.
‘My lord, is there any reason why I should not be pleased?’
‘Indeed no. There is every reason why you should be pleased. I will tell you this. I find you are a very pretty woman.’
‘Ah.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘Then you have not come to tell me that you are displeased with me and would dismiss me from the Lady Jacqueline’s household.’
‘Nay, nay, I have come to tell you that I would wish to take you into mine.’
‘My lord jests,’ she began but got no further because he had put his arms about her and his mouth was pressing on hers.
She was warm in her response as he had known she would be. He had had his eyes on her for days … and he knew well enough that she had been aware of it and was cordially inviting him to proceed.
‘You’re a witch,’ he said. ‘You’ve bewitched me.’
‘Mayhap. But it is not my occult powers that have done it.’
‘Well, what shall we do about it, eh? What should you say?’
‘I should say that you must remember your good wife, the Lady Jacqueline. But it might be that I will not say what I should.’
‘Then what will you say?’
She drew away from him and put out her tongue provocatively. ‘I shall say this, my lord. You are a man … and men do what they will … when they will, how they will. What does a poor woman do?’
‘You mean …’ he said.
‘I mean nothing, fair sir. Yet I could mean anything.’
He approached her again. He seized her. ‘I want you,’ he said. ‘You know it.’
She opened her wide languorous eyes and said, ‘When? Here?’
‘Why not?’ he said.
‘You are a bold man.’
‘You’ll find me as bold as you wish me to be.’
She pushed him from her. ‘Here? … when my lady might come at any moment?’
‘She is studying the accounts. I sent her to do so.’
‘That you might come and see me?’
‘You know I’ve had my eyes on you for days.’
‘I saw the lust in them.’
‘ ’Tis not the first time you’ve seen such looks I’ll warrant. Nor satisfied them either,’ he added.
‘My lord you are offensive.’
‘You arouse a madness in me.’
‘Never mind. Soon you will be overseas. Just curb yourself till then.’
‘You will come with us. You must.’
An alert look came into her eyes.
‘Shall I be there then?’ She came to him and put her arms about his neck. ‘I should not wish,’ she went on, ‘to find a man to my taste and then to lose him to the Dutch or the Zealanders or the folk of Hainault.’
‘Is that what you want? To come with us?’
She put her head on one side. ‘I’d have to try you first to see if I wanted that.’
She dragged him through a door. They were in a small closet. ‘My sleeping apartment,’ she explained. ‘Small but it will suffice, I think, for at such a moment as this even the mighty Duke of Gloucester has other things to think of than his surroundings.’
‘My God,’ he said. And he laughed in triumph. He was in a fever of excitement such as he had rarely known before. His delight was increased when he realised that his eagerness was matched by hers.
He was convinced he had never before enjoyed such an encounter.
For a woman like this one he could forget not only Jacqueline but Hainault, Holland and Zealand.
Preparations for departure were proceeding rapidly and there were frantic messages arriving from Bedford.
‘For God’s sake,’ wrote Bedford to his brother, ‘do nothing rash. Burgundy is incensed. This could lose us his friendship.’
Humphrey laughed and bombastically declared to Eleanor that it amused him to see old John in such a panic. It might lose him Burgundy’s friendship but it was going to bring vast advantages to Humphrey.
‘Don’t you think I should consider myself, sweetheart?’ Eleanor replied that indeed he should for it was something which he did to perfection being so practised in that art.
He could laugh at her; she amused him; she was ambitious for him too; she wanted him not only supreme in her bed but in the field. It amused her to have a powerful lover. She wanted him to be the most powerful man in England; and he would be when he regained Jacqueline’s lands.